Belichick no different than Bonds
BY DAN LE BATARD
dlebatard@MiamiHerald.com

Everybody in the game does it. It is impossible to know just how much of an advantage it gives you, although people are willing to fracture rules and honor in an attempt to find out. It is an artificial enhancer of your natural talent that offers you a competitive advantage and lopsides the playing field.

Are we talking about steroids here or stealing signs?

If you are outraged by Barry Bonds and call him a sinister fraud, then you have to think the same of champion cheat Bill Belichick today if you want to be consistent.

Not the same?

You are right.

Belichick's crime is probably worse morally because he ought to know better as the authority figure, and because he was specifically told that videotaping signs was prohibited and he flatly ignored the warning anyway. That makes his arrogance and defiance even more galling than that of Bonds, who may have been rubbing cream on his body because, as we are now learning, everybody in his contaminated and ungoverned sport was doing it at a time when no one was being told to stop doing it.

Stealing signs is part of the game?

Yep.

And, as Jay Gibbons and Rick Ankiel and Troy Glaus and Rafael Palmeiro and Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire can tell you, so were steroids.

HGH is illegal, too, so that's where some people will go in objecting to this comparison. But it has been wink-wink illegal throughout sports for a long time now, not unlike marijuana. It isn't like DEA agents have been invading gyms throughout our land arresting bodybuilders and professional wrestlers. HGH has become part of the fabric of our sports. Former running back Robert Smith guesses that 30 percent of the NFL is presently using HGH, and he admits he's probably being conservative with that guess. Will you call the alleged marriage-wrecking Belichick, who has a lot of dishonesty recorded in both his professional and personal life, a liar and cheater and fraud with the same intensity that you do Bonds?

Belichick stands accused of institutional fraud today. He knowingly broke the rules after being told not to do it. And if you think stealing signs is a no-big-deal advantage, and a part of all our games, you don't see the difference between the runner at second base stealing the catcher's signs and the New York Yankees installing a secret camera in the second-base bag to do so.

If he didn't think it gave him a substantive edge, Belichick probably wouldn't have been purposely ignoring league rules after being warned not to do it. And if you don't think that knowing what is coming helps in something that moves as fast as our professional games, tell it to Andy Pettitte. The Diamondbacks beat him 15-2 in Game 6 of a World Series because he was tipping his pitches. Every Arizona player had a hit before the third inning. No big deal, right? All it did was cost the Yankees a championship.

THE GREATER EDGE?

Yes, you still have to execute, obviously. Randy Moss and Tom Brady still have to complete the pass even if they know what's coming. But Bonds also still has to hit the 95-mph fastball even if he is smearing HGH on his face and shaving with it. Which do you think gives the greater edge on the scoreboard? Glaus, a World Series MVP, allegedly doing steroid cycles? Or Moss and Brady and Belichick knowing what's coming even when they are already better than anyone on the field when they don't know what's coming? For a team that won three Super Bowls by three points each time, cheating only has to give you an advantage on one successful play to change the result and the champion. Bonds was already the best when he allegedly started cheating. So, too, was Belichick. Didn't stop either of them from doing it, evidently.

''There are so many different views on this thing,'' says Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor. ``The Patriots are good regardless. They don't need to steal signals.''

No, they probably don't. But they did. After specifically being told not to. Are there gradations and nuances to cheating the way there is to law-breaking? Murder, obviously, is not the same as jaywalking.

''Stealing signs is not the same as changing the hormone levels in your body in a game that is built on speed, power and quickness,'' Taylor says. ``I'm not condoning the cheating part of it, but they are two different things -- apples and oranges.''

Taylor compared what Belichick did to defensive linemen stealing the audibles of offenses. But that's not outlawed. Taylor didn't specifically get a memo prohibiting him from doing that the way Belichick was warned about this. And it will be interesting to see whether hard-line commissioner Roger Goodell drops the ax on Belichick and the Patriots with the same drop-your-jaw ruthlessness that he has wielded in an unprecedented way over the past year.

If Dallas quarterback coach Wade Wilson gets suspended for five games for using HGH to treat diabetic impotence, even though it has nothing at all to do with contaminating the playing field or the integrity of the result, shouldn't Belichick receive a similar penalty for openly defying league rules?

DOCUMENTED PROOF

We really don't know how much this helped or didn't help the Patriots, just like we don't know how much the nandrolone helped Chargers linebacker Shawn Merriman or Glaus. No way to measure it. And maybe it is just a coincidence that in the two games that we know Belichick cheated in, they won 35-0 at Green Bay and 38-14 at New York. But we now have documented proof that Belichick cheated, unlike all the circumstantial evidence that swirls around Bonds.

You don't have to be outraged at either of them if you think that games are entertainment and all should be allowed under the circus tent.

But if you are furious at one of them, you can't be consistent unless you are furious at them both.

DaKCMan AP

09-13-2007, 07:03 AM

IMO, Le Batard makes some good points

here:

Belichick's crime is probably worse morally because he ought to know better as the authority figure, and because he was specifically told that videotaping signs was prohibited and he flatly ignored the warning anyway.

here:

For a team that won three Super Bowls by three points each time, cheating only has to give you an advantage on one successful play to change the result and the champion.

here:

And maybe it is just a coincidence that in the two games that we know Belichick cheated in, they won 35-0 at Green Bay and 38-14 at New York.

and here:

If Dallas quarterback coach Wade Wilson gets suspended for five games for using HGH to treat diabetic impotence, even though it has nothing at all to do with contaminating the playing field or the integrity of the result, shouldn't Belichick receive a similar penalty for openly defying league rules?

cadmonkey

09-13-2007, 07:43 AM

And maybe it is just a coincidence that in the two games that we know Belichick cheated in, they won 35-0 at Green Bay and 38-14 at New York. But we now have documented proof that Belichick cheated, unlike all the circumstantial evidence that swirls around Bonds.

That would be agood point except they weren't stealing the offensive play calls, they were stealing the deffensive calls. Both games the other team couldn't score with dick, so whats the point. If Green Bay or New York couldn't really score on us it doesn't matter.

Cochise

09-13-2007, 08:07 AM

To me, I don't think it necessarily taints the team's history because we don't know how long it's been going on.

With Bonds, any reasonable person can tell when it started, when he showed up that year for spring training +40 pounds, then he got hurt, and then he started that run of seasons where he was a power hitter, and then MLB started testing for roids and he got hurt again, missed a lot of time and then reverted to hitting 20s HR per year. About what you'd expect if he were au naturale since he'd been mostly a 30s guy before but now he was a lot older.

With the Patriots, you don't really know, we don't have any evidence to suggest it was happening in 2001 just because it's happening in 2007.

So they could possibly be just as bad, but it seems like you can really only judge this year and last year when that Green Bay game was where they were caught cheating as well.

KcMizzou

09-13-2007, 08:21 AM

To me, I don't think it necessarily taints the team's history because we don't know how long it's been going on.
I think that's exactly why it does...

BucEyedPea

09-13-2007, 08:40 AM

green alligator envy jealousy :harumph:

Chiefnj2

09-13-2007, 09:51 AM

Bump because it is one of the better articles on the Pats cheating.

Bill Parcells

09-13-2007, 09:54 AM

green alligator envy jealousy :harumph:

I'm gonna keep posting this every time I read a whining Pats fans post

Let me get this out of the way first...I still do not think the jets beat the pats last Sunday regardless of "spygate". I also do not think that the Pats would have been a .500 team these past 6 years if not for their cheating. That said, I find the hypocricy and arrogance of both the Patriots and their fans to this issue to be pathetic.

First the fans.

If I have to read one more freakin justification for what BB did I am going to puke. No JR Pats fans, he did not "misunderstand" the rules or "interpret them wrong"...he knew DAMN well what he was doing. Just like he knew damn well that if he sent 150K in cash to a marired woman (while he was married) via Fed Ex that it would pretty much prove that he was having some sort of affair with her. I have read where some fans think Holy Belli did this to expose this issue so it could be gotten rid of for good!!!!! Are you f-ing kidding me???? BL, Belicheck is a BAD person. He is paranoid and will do anyhting that he thinks will give himself an advantage. Whether that means skipping out on a contractual obligation to the jets or video taping other teams to steal signals or banging someone elses wife. Doesnt mean hes not a great coach, he is...but he's a BAD person. Just like a lot of very successful poeple are bad people. He knew EXACTLY what he was doing here and was so f-ing arrogant...he didn't care.

As to what effect this taping had on the Pats success...NONE of us has any true idea about that. Did the taping help them beat the jets this weekend? Maybe, maybe not. But if he was taping the jets last year, whose to say those tapes didnt help him? Whose to say they didnt tape the Rams and used the singals in that last game winning drive? How do we know its not the reason they beat Indy so easily all those year where suddenly Manning was "human"? maybe they taped Indys' O signals. Who knows? The point is to dismiss this as being "no big deal" or not having any impact on their success is ridiculous.

Finally, I have had to listen to the "everyone is doing it but the Pats just got caught" excuse. OK, then why did everyone come down so hard on Jason Giambi or Barry Bonds for doing steroids when we know so many others are doing it to. And if the answer is that doing steroids has a greater impact then tapinging signals then I say thats crap. Are Pats fans saying that cheating is OK...its the DEGREE of cheating that is the issue? And these are the same fans who cired like a bunch of pussies after they got a "bad call" v Denver in the playoffs and claimed it was because the refs were out to get them.

Pats fans have become nothing more then a bunch of spoiled, uppity, excuse making fools. I understand that they have 3 rings in 6 years and that affords them the right to be arrogant...but go back and watch some films from as recently as the early 90s. You saw empty stadiums and low season ticket base. Only after the hired Parcells did they build up the season ticket base and only after the new stadium and won SBs have they been sold out wiht a waiting list. Immena even in the Jets WORST years, all tickets were sld and the wait list has never dipped under 20,000. Jets fans may not show up to the game when thngs are bad, but they buy their tickets and never totally abandon their team like Pats fans did. Prior to 2001 the Pats held the disticntion of being the LONGEST exisiting franchise in ALL sports to not win a title since incpetion. Yet they act like their team has the Cowboys or Steelers or 49ers history. Pats fans are a bunch of arrogant front runners who will disappear like coachroaches in the light once this run of succes is over. You watch. Boston fans did it with the Celtics and will do it with the Pats when this run ends.

YOUR TEAM/HC CHEATED. DEAL WITH IT. END OF STORY!!!!

As to the Pats themselves,

I zero in on Fat Bobby Kraft first who wile being a great owner, seems to think he is on a par with Halas and the Maras when to comes to NFL importance. But this is a man who suppossedly holds honor so near and dear. A man who cried like a baby when Parcells dishonored him. A man who cut a 3rd round pick tw days after the draft after his wife told him to because the player had sexual assualt allegations against him. A man who has a zero tolerance policy in his stadium for fan behavior and took away season tickets from a fan because the fans FRIEND peed in a sink in a bathroom. So I would assume a man with such honor and a zero tolerance policy for the fans who buy his tickets would have the same type policy for his employees. Yet his initial statement about this seems to defend his coach and blow this of by syaing "everyone is just jealous of us". Shame on you for your hypopcrisy Bob Kraft. Your coach cheated. If you knew about it you are a compliant hypocrite. If you didnt and now you defend it, you are a blatant hypocrtie.

And the team...these examples of all that is good and pure in the NFL. Please. Between Brady's illegitimate kid and public abandonment of its mother, Belli's adulterous affair with a married woman, Harrison's HGH, they are not the shining beacons of all that is pure and good that they claim to be...this latest incident just compounds the destruction of that myth.

Look, I am sure every Pats fan that reads this will claim its just sour grapes from a Jets fan who wishes his team could win 3 titles...and maybe there is some truth to that. But it doesnt change the fact that Pats fans have become this arrogant, pompous group of apologists for anyhting their team does. Their team, whihc has had little to no real success prior to 2001, cheated and got caught and like it or not it raises questions as to how much of an illegal advatage they have had since BB took over. If they were smart, they would condemn what BB did rather then try to defend or minimize it. But they're not smart...instead they try to explain it away or flash their 3 rings as some sort of blanket exoneration for anyhting they do.

Grow up Pats fans. This is a sh*tty thing your arrogant coach has done apparantly for quite a while. Perhaps if you all had the balls to simply admit that rather then smugly dismissing it, other fans would have more repsect for you.

Frazod

09-13-2007, 09:55 AM

I guess if you cheat a New York team, that's bad. Good thing the Broncos didn't pull their cooking spray crap against the Jets or the Giants. That would have been wrong. :rolleyes:

BucEyedPea

09-13-2007, 09:55 AM

Ha! Ha! I was just laughing was all.

Ari Chi3fs

09-13-2007, 10:29 AM

You know... Belichek was having an affair with a married woman, so you know his morals aren't all that sound.

Im just saying...

Cochise

09-13-2007, 10:33 AM

You know... Belichek was having an affair with a married woman, so you know his morals aren't all that sound.

Im just saying...

True, if you are going to cheat on your wife, I'm not sure who ought to be able to trust you.